Virtual Ethernet hub launches Windows 3.11 LAN play over WebSockets and DHCP

• levelsio's main thread showed a browser-based virtual Ethernet hub that links separate Windows 3.11 sessions over WebSockets and hands out addresses with DHCP-style assignment.
• In the demo video, one browser session successfully pings another, which turns a single-user retro PC toy into shared networked infrastructure.
• levelsio's reply about the architecture says the system currently uses a server as the hub, and his dial-up reply ties it to the same browser PC stack already used for internet connectivity.
• levelsio's Quake bridge thread says he already connected MS-DOS Quake from 1996 to a modern WebGL Quake server through a SLIP-to-WebSocket path, which makes the new LAN layer feel like the next obvious hack.

You can see the browser LAN demo, the older Quake bridge experiment, and even a rough mockup that levelsio described as a draft room view. His Duke Nukem 3D reply also makes clear where he wants this to go next: multiplayer inside the same browser-native retro PC universe.

The core trick in levelsio's main thread is simple and great: the emulated NE2000 network card sends traffic over WebSockets instead of a physical cable, and each open browser session joins the same fake local network.

That thread also spells out the three pieces that make the illusion work:

• A virtual Ethernet hub that acts as the shared LAN
• DHCP-style address assignment for each browser session
• A WebSocket path to wss://pieter.com instead of a real wire

Windows 3.11 ping demo

The payoff is visible in the attached demo, where one DOS prompt pings another browser session. Retro computing people have been emulating single machines for years. Shared room behavior is the weirder, more fun layer.

In levelsio's room mockup reply, he says the goal is a room where more computers automatically appear when more people enter and get "cabled up." That shifts the project from emulator plumbing into scene design.

The reference point in levelsio's LAN party photo post is not abstract nostalgia. It is literal CRTs, towers, cables, and a social topology that depended on physical proximity. Rebuilding that in the browser is catnip for anyone making multiplayer spaces that feel more specific than another generic lobby.

Before the Ethernet hub, levelsio's Quake bridge thread had already mapped a stranger route: WebGL Quake in one browser talked to a 1996 MS-DOS Quake client running inside his virtual PC.

He broke the packet path into steps:

• WATT-32 TCP/IP stack package
• ETHERSL packet driver
• SLIP encode over COM3
• WebSocket transport to wss://pieter.com
• Server-side SLIP decode and Linux IP forwarding
• Delivery into the modern Quake server

MS-DOS Quake talking to WebGL Quake

That chain matters because it shows the project was already treating old network protocols as creative material, not preservation glass.

levelsio's Duke Nukem 3D reply says Duke Nukem 3D multiplayer is coming "very soon," and his dial-up reply adds that the same setup already underpins dial-up internet inside the browser machine.

That means the stack is no longer just about one clever ping or one Quake stunt. It now spans local networking, dial-up-style connectivity, and game-specific multiplayer ambitions inside the same browser retro PC setup.